This may ruffle the feathers among fans of this technique or you may find yourself agreeing with me but in my personal opinion I think HDR is dead already.

Is HDR dead?

What is HDR? HDR is quite simply a relatively new technique used in imaging to combine several images, exposed for both highlights and shadows, to create an image where detail and tone is visible throughout the image. Under normal circumstances it is normally not possible to achieve this in just one exposure.

Why is it dead already? Everywhere I look I see examples of this technique, and in the right context it’s a great way to show off amazing textures and mood but already the novelty has worn off. I know for some this technique is very serious business and it’s another “tool” in the photographer’s box but with HDR there is something that’s missing from a normal photo, mystery.

Take a shot of a dramatic interior with light spilling down corridors with dark mysterious corners, chinks of light beckoning us to investigate the image further but not giving us enough detail to discover what is lurking there. Process with HDR and devoid of mystery, these sterile images give it all away. Detail is in everything, its omnipresent, nothing is left to chance. Nothing left to our imagination, like an operating theater prepped for surgery, every surface clean with no surprises.

Colour range and tone from HDR images had a certain look and I’ve noticed this “look” migrating over to the cinema recently, slightly muted, gritty images packed with details, where is it going stop?

Fellow imagers, it’s great in small doses but don’t overdo it! Suggestion. Make a hybrid of the images, keep some of the mystery and develop a middle ground, or go back to basics and think about mood, mystery and magic that stems from the darkness. Think harder about the shot before auto bracketing and generating that sterile HDR!

What do you think?

About the Author

I'm a photo restoration artist preserving moments in history, a photo retoucher and an image wizard. For the last 3 years, a Lynda.com author providing content based learning, photo restoration courses.

In my opinion I still prefer some mystery in a photo, call me old fashioned, or perhaps it is OCD and i dont like change? I never had an issue with Ansel Adams. I fully appreciate that “times have changed” and i think now there is less of the “overuse” I was referring to in 2010. Thanks for stopping by on such an old thread!

(From 2010, how did this end up on Google+ today??? Anyway . . .) No, HDR is not dead. I bought my first DSLR (Canon 2e Film) because I was tired of going on vacation, seeing the beautiful vista of meadow / mountains / sunset and only being able to get EITHER meadow or sunset, NEVER both “like my eyes saw it” at the same time. (I know, my eye’s can’t see that either, its eyes+brain cheating to persist the overall image. But that “persisted beauty” is what I (what many) want to capture.) It wasn’t until Digital+HDR that I finally achieved reproducing what my “eye” saw at the time. If they can develop a camera with sufficient Dynamic Range . . . then sure, I’d give up taking three shots and Photomatix/Lightroom to merge them. But, NO SUCH CAMERA EXISTS YET to do it all in one shot. (Now, my 7D is better than the original 2e Film. And my NEX-6 is amazing in low-light,but nothing I’ve seen, is “there yet”.) So, no, HDR isn’t dead. (At least for that one reason.) And it appears we have a long time to wait for any chance to see it go. Stand in a tunnel, show me the graffiti on the wall, the mouth of the tunnel and the bright courtyard, properly exposed, in ONE SHOT . . . I’ll buy that camera and sign the death certificate of HDR. But . . . not until then.

Its the same for me but with depth of field. I’ve always wanted a camera that easily in one shot take everything in focus.! How did the post find its way onto Google+ from 2010 I resurrected it. I noticed a high amount of buzz to do with HDR this week and pulled it out from my archive. Great comments and thanks for stopping by the blog. You can tell i’m not a fan of HDR but tunnels and light, we will have to differ on that one. I like the mystery of what is beyond and what lurks in the shadows…

Local (sunnysixteen.org) camera club just had Dusty Doddridge speak. He was big on leaving “Mystery” in the photo. There’s just a difference of seeing a “corner” and having the mystery of what’s around the corner that you can NOT see around, and NOT being able to see something that I COULD see in person and creating artificial mystery. You’re not ‘wrong’, photography (like autism) is a “spectrum”, not an absolute. Thanks.

I take “the death of HDR” as a provocative statement, It is just a tool elevated as a trend by some after all. Taste and art direction make a picture, not a technical show-off. Anyway the high dynamic range in photography is grossly overstated in my opinion. Most of the latitude limitations can be overcome by a simply thought multiple raw processing or a straight forward “bracketing” while shooting, remember in the old days? Gritty details and saturated colors come out easy enough from high pass filtering and some creative color correction; well most of the times. Where HDR has no substitutes is in CGI where you can use the extended dynamic range to light up computer generated imaginary without any virtual lighting added. This is after all the real purpose by which was intended, a technical discovery without direct artistic connotation. Check the creator Paul Debevec if not sure what this is about. Maybe ten years from now photographers will look back and say “oh HDR, so millennium…” like we might now comment about seventies style soft focus or cross-star filters. In the end I would say HDR is well alive still, like all the other tools use it anyway you want; is your picture after all.

Interesting insights Neil. I would have to agree that the newness of HDR has died off, but it will continue to evolve. Software developers are continuing to push innovations in high dynamic imaging and just the other day I overheard someone mention HDR mode on their iPhone to another novice. I’m sure the big names in camera manufacturing have taken serious look at the HDR trend and will look at making their own improvements to meet consumer needs.

Personally, I am constantly trying to learn new tips and tricks of the trade while developing my own personal style. I’m definitely on board with your comments about leaving something to the imagination and giving a sense of mystery. I don’t shoot exclusively with multiple exposures and I am also finding myself stepping back from an HDR attempt to work with a single exposure instead. One particular piece I was working on was of a sunset. It just didn’t have the impact I was looking for when the foreground of the rocks along the beach were pulled out of the shadows.